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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645008">School Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingOntos/pseuds/TheAmazingOntos'>TheAmazingOntos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Change [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Magic Revealed, Mild Language, POV First Person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:41:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645008</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingOntos/pseuds/TheAmazingOntos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An angry little person explains how magic works for each person</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Change [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960861</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>School Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"These are the basics of magic in the world now and how they are used. You learn these, and you can turn even your pathetic talents into a formidable force. You fail to learn them, and you will be as helpless as a newborn. Any questions?" Alyssa asks, giving no indication that she wants an answer. </p>
<p>"Just one. Why are you talking as though there are more people than the two of us?" I ask innocently, and she stares at me with barely disguised loathing. </p>
<p>"Just shut up and let me finish, because I didn't want to teach you. Now, there are eight schools of magic that almost everyone falls under. There are outliers, with magic that doesn't fit into the established doctrine, but we're not here to talk about those. There's also potion making, but someone else who cares will tell you about that. </p>
<p>"Firstly, there are pyromancers. They don't just control fire, though. They control the flow of potential energy from one location to another. All magic has a cost, however, and theirs is that their metabolism speeds up when they use magic. You just don't see fat pyromancers, ever.</p>
<p>"Second, there are the hydromancers. They control liquids. Skilled users can manipulate living material, but they also need to understand how the body works to heal. Not so much for rending, which is when they decide that your body would be better off in separate chunks and make it do that to itself. Their cost is that they're empathic. They feel other people's emotions, as you know with Shivani."</p>
<p>"Stop teasing him about me. And don't tell me you didn't, because I felt the spike of emotion all the way over here," Shivani yells from her spot behind the desk.</p>
<p>"I'm conducting an orientation class here. Don't interrupt," Alyssa yells back. "The stronger they are, the more sensitive they become, as you just saw.</p>
<p>"Aeromancers control any kind of gas, and aerosols count as gases to them. Not that you know what an aerosol is, but it's any other material in the air."</p>
<p>"You mean any other fine, suspended material in the air. I don't think you can count a bunch of kites in the air an aerosol," I put in quickly, because I'm annoyed at her. Condescend all you want, but don't deny my knowledge. </p>
<p>"Do you want me to finish or not? It's not like I care about helping you, since all you're going to do is steal my friends. I probably should just leave you here and mark you as unteachable," she huffs, with a mutinous look on her face. </p>
<p>"I didn't steal your friends, little girl. Shivani is still your friend, I only talked to her twice. And I don't know any of your other friends to steal," I try saying in a reasonable voice, and probably manage, from the look on Alyssa's face. </p>
<p>"My only other friend here is Emily, and you used to work with her. She'll come back from assignment, see you and forget all about me. Then I'll have to deal with the assholes again all by myself," she finishes quietly. </p>
<p>I put aside the fact that Emily is alive and still in country and focus on the other part of what she said. "What assholes? Seriously, what do they do?"</p>
<p>"Like you don't know. The stronger magic users here who pressure people into doing what they want. They make the guys do their work and the women do... other things. If you're not strong or have people who watch your back, you're fucked. Well, I'm fucked, you're probably going to be in a cage safe from all the dicks," she finishes moodily. </p>
<p>Being a reasonable human being, I'm offended and angry that something like this happens. However, unlike most other reasonable human beings, I'm not quite in a place where I can do something about it yet.</p>
<p>"Okay, I didn't know. Let's get back to the lesson, and maybe I can figure something out to end those assholes," I say to her gently. </p>
<p>"Fine, let's continue. You already know about umbramancers and artificers, because you can do both, so we'll skip those. Terramancers can move earth in all it's forms, from solid rock or metal to sand and dust. They also get super strength, and that is probably the only magical ability that doesn't come with a cost or a negative. Speaking of, their negative is that their body petrifies a little when they use their powers. It goes away with time, but if it hits the brain or heart, they're dead.</p>
<p>"Necromancers raise corpses and ghosts to do their magic. They also have an ability most people call 'possession', but it doesn't work like people think. They call a ghost into their body, and said ghost's knowledge becomes available to them. Their cost is in blood, hair or body parts, and it doesn't have to be their own if they're strong enough.</p>
<p>Lastly, there are photomancers. They use light like you use shadow. That means simple constructs, and forming items out of light. They also have an ability to manipulate minds, which is all kinds of wrong. Their cost is that they become more of an ass than they were, because the magic reinforces their ego.</p>
<p>"That's it for types of magic. Now for the hard part for people to understand, the different ways to invoke that magic. There's three main ways to harness magic, and two variations on each. The first is evocation, or magic by thinking about it. There's reflex evocation, where things just happen almost without your control. Almost nobody uses this because it'll get them killed by the cost. Then there's binding evocation, where you feel the magic, decide how you want to use it, and visualise it, which makes it happen.</p>
<p>"Next is ritual magic. This one is simple or complex, depending on how much effort you put into it. Simple stuff would be like a pyromancer pointing a finger and calling flames or a terramancer stomping the ground to make a shockwave. The complex rituals involve circles, pentagrams and focus objects. The magic is cheaper, but it's no good in a fight unless you have time to get ready. </p>
<p>"Lastly, there's thautamurgy. That almost exclusively falls under artificers, though. You all can do simple or hard work, from the way your Guild describes it. Simple is like this compass on my watch, that always points to my keys. A basic link between the two objects. Complex would be a voodoo doll, but those are illegal under the 2021 Geneva Convention Amendments regarding Magic. So don't get caught doing war crimes," she finishes. </p>
<p>"Once I get some practice, we'll see about the war crimes. Especially since I don't think assholes are protected by the Geneva Convention," I say, already planning for what I can do about them.</p>
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